Deja Iraq.Alarm is spreading in western capitals about the country's growing chaos and militia violence, and evidence that al-Qaida is setting up bases in what is rapidly becoming a failed state.
[...]
Since the revolution, militias formed to fight the regime of Muammar Gaddafi have morphed into private armies, led by charismatic warlords, their fighting and gangsterism bringing the country to its knees. Outside the capital, much of this desert country resembles a Mad Max film set, its highways crisscrossed by militiamen in exotic battle wagons featuring anti-aircraft guns and rocket tubes. Militia blockades have halted oil production, starving the government of cash. In the cities there is stagnation, violence, power blackouts and petrol shortages; this in the country that is home to Africa's biggest oil reserves.
[...]
Having destroyed most of Libya's army in the 2011 bombing campaign, Britain and the United States are leading an operation to build a new one.
[...]
Bassingbourn was a second world war base for the US air force, best known as the home of the Memphis Belle bomber, immortalised in a Hollywood film of the same name. Libya has paid £2.5m to have it taken out of mothballs and readied for the first batch of recruits, part of a force of up to 15,000 that Britain, Italy, Turkey and the US will train over the next two years.
[...]
US drones are in the sky, flying from bases in Niger and Italy. A Nato mission, with an undisclosed mandate, has been deployed.
[...]
The most powerful militias are backed and financed by sections of Libya's General National Congress, elected last year [...] Each militia is seen as a bulwark against the other. Neither fully trusts the new army. The Muslim Brotherhood, whose Islamist coalition holds a narrow majority in congress, is wary of both Nato training and the fact that the new army is staffed by Gaddafi-era officers.
Guardian
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
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